NEW YORK – Many of the Toronto Blue Jays’ low points this season have come on the road, and the 1-6 trip through Baltimore and New York they wrapped up Sunday represented a bitter, if fitting, nadir to their slide out of post-season contention.
A 5-2 loss to the New York Yankees left them 37-44 for the year away from the friendly confines of the Rogers Centre, while dropping them to a stunning 2-8 since a 7-2 start to September that pulled them back into relevance.
All the more painful is that everyone from wild card leaders Oakland and Kansas City on down has done their part to open the door to a potential rally, and even a 4-3 trip for the Blue Jays, now 78-77, would have made the last week interesting.
Instead, they’re on the brink of elimination.
Considering how the 2-8 road trip July 3-13 through Oakland, Anaheim and Tampa nearly blew apart their season before the all-star break and a 2-6 run Aug. 11-20 through Seattle, Chicago and Milwaukee again nearly knocked them out, perhaps expecting better over the last seven days was too much.
For the Blue Jays, the road is where the heartache is.
“Disappointing, at this point of the season we were right there,” said Jose Reyes, 3-for-4 with two runs scored. “It was an opportunity to make it to the playoffs, for me, it’s not about anything else. It’s been a little while for me to play in October and if we don’t make it, it’s going to be another disappointing year. When you get to the age of 31 like me, it doesn’t matter if you hit .340 or .350 and you go home in September. It’s all about making it to the playoffs and World Series and we weren’t able to do that. It’s disappointing for sure.”
Drew Hutchison made it two batters into the fifth before getting yanked from an outing in which he both laboured and was overpowering. He struck out six but also walked three and surrendered five hits, including home runs to Brian McCann in the first and Brett Gardner in the fifth, a shot that was the 15,000th in Yankees history and gave New York a 2-1 lead.
That was plenty for Masahiro Tanaka, making his first start since July 8 when elbow woes sidelined him, and the Yankees bullpen.
A Derek Jeter single followed the Gardner homer to ignite the crowd of 48,144 and bring John Gibbons out to get Hutchison, ending the Blue Jays run of consecutive starts of at least six innings at a club record 26.
“My fastball command was just a little bit off,” said Hutchison. “It really just came down to poor execution and poor command with my fastball to throw that many pitches that early.”
Jeter, in his fourth-last home game before retiring, tormented them again in the seventh with an RBI double off Todd Redmond that opened up a 3-1 lead. Daniel Norris came on in relief, Jeter stole third and then scored on McCann’s second homer of the afternoon. The place went nuts.
Jeter played in 269 career games against the Blue Jays, batting .313 (341-for-1,085) with 24 homers and 110 RBIs with 186 runs scored. Congrats were offered to him in the seventh as he stood at second during a pitching change, with the outfielders running in to offer well-wishes.
“I told him, ‘We’re going to miss you, for sure,” said Reyes. “He came by and told me, ‘I’ll be in Toronto watching you,’ as a joke. It’s been a pleasure watching Jeter throughout his career doing what he does, it’s unbelievable, so I said to him, ‘Enjoy the last week of the season, I know we’re not going to see you on the baseball field, but what an unbelievable career, congratulations on all your success.’”
The Blue Jays won’t be sad to see the last of Yankee Stadium for the season. While they did manage to end their 17-game losing streak there, they still went just 3-7 in the Bronx to finish the year 8-11 versus the Yankees.
If you’re scanning the ledger for where things went wrong this year, it’s a good place to start.
While the Orioles simply outclassed the Blue Jays in every facet of the game during the three-game sweep that opened the trip, the Yankees plain out-executed them, delivering key plays at pivotal moments.
“If you compare the teams right now, they’re running out more veteran players than we are, we’re running out a lot of young kids,” said Gibbons. “Speaking of Baltimore, I love the way they play the game, they’ve got a lot of hard-nosed guys, fundamentally sound type of player. The (Yankees) have a lot of seasoned veterans, they’ve all been to the playoffs and they’re basically the same type of team.
“You play for the Yankees you do things a certain way. I know they’re disappointed in their year and where they stand right now, it’s not over for them, but they’re very professional, put it that way.”
In both series, the Blue Jays saw plenty of things to aspire to.